Conventionally, a liquid crystal display (LCD) apparatus, as an example of a flat display apparatus, includes a base member, such as a glass substrate, pixels including pixel electrodes and thin-film transistor (TFT) switching elements disposed in a matrix on the substrate to form an LCD panel or an LCD cell, polyimide flexible tape substrates, such as tape-carrier-package (TCP) members, on which driver IC components are assembled to drive the TFT switching elements, and outer lead bonding (OLB) terminals which electrically and mechanically connect TCP members to driver IC components.
A plurality of electric terminals made from indium tin oxide (ITO), for instance, are disposed in parallel with each other on the glass substrate provided for the LCD cell. Also, a plurality of electric terminals made from copper, for instance, are disposed in parallel with each other on the TCP members. Opposed to each other, thermo-compression bonding is carried out for both electric terminals with an anisotropic conductive film set between them. In this way, the electric terminals are electrically and mechanically connected to each other.
The glass substrate of the LCD cell is different in thermal expansion rate from the polyimide tape substrate, so that the tape substrate thermally expands more than the glass substrate when the glass substrate is connected to the polyimide substrate by the thermo-compression bonding. Thus, prior to such connection, disposed pitches of the electric terminals of the tape substrate are set in consideration of the difference in thermal expansion rate, which is called reduced adjustments to make the glass-substrate-side electric terminals equal in pitches to the tape-substrate-side electric terminals after the thermo-expansion bonding (as disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication 2003-249527, for instance).
Since all the electric terminals of the tape substrate, however, are subjected to reduced adjustments, when the electric terminals of the tape substrate are aligned with those of the glass substrate in preparation for connections, operators must determine dispositions of the terminals of the tape substrate in consideration of expansion of the tape substrate while observing connections adjusted between the electric terminals of the tape substrate and those of the glass substrates on a monitor device. In other words, in order for all the electric terminals of the tape substrate to be precisely connected to those of the glass substrate, the electric terminals of the tape substrate must be shifted with respect to those of the glass substrate. Thus, such sophisticated alignment requires experience and time; the problem is that the alignment is not easy.